promises

Like Precious Faith

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

…to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ… – 2 Peter 1:1

Be pleased to notice the word “righteousness.” It is a faith in the righteousness of our God and our Saviour. In these days, certain divines have tried to get rid of all idea of atonement; they have taught that faith in Jesus Christ would save men, apart from any faith in Him as a sacrifice. Ah, brethren, it does not say, “faith in the teaching of God our Saviour;” I do not find here that it is written, “faith in the character of God our Saviour, as our exemplar.” No, but “faith in the righteousness of God our Saviour.” That righteousness, like a white robe, must be cast around us. I have not received Jesus Christ at all, but I am an adversary and an enemy to Him, unless I have received Him as Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. There is His perfect life; that life was a life for me; it contains all the virtues, in it there is no spot; it keeps the law of God, and makes it honourable; my faith takes that righteousness of Jesus Christ, and it is cast about me, and I am then so beauteously, nay, so perfectly arrayed, that even the eye of God can see neither spot nor blemish in me. Have we, then, today a faith in the righteousness of God our Saviour? For no faith but this can ever bring the soul into a condition of acceptance before the Most High. ‘Why,” saith one, “these are the very simplicities of the gospel.” Beloved, I know they are, and thanks be to God, it is the simplicities which lie at the foundation; and it is rather by simplicities than by mysteries that a Christian is to try himself and to see whether he be in the faith or no. Put the question, brethren, have we, then, this like precious faith in God and our Saviour Jesus Christ? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0551.cfm

Seek of God the Faith that Saves

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. – Acts 16:31

Beloved friends, have we heartily and joyfully received Jesus Christ as God? My hearer, if thou hast not, I pray thee seek of God the faith that saves, for thou hast it not as yet, nor art thou in the way to it. Who but a God could bear the weight of sin? Who but a God shall be the “same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?” Concerning whom but God could it be said, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” We have to do with Christ, and we should be consumed if He changed; inasmuch, then, as He does not change, and we are not consumed, He must be divine, and our soul rolls the entire burden of its care and guilt upon the mighty shoulders of the everlasting God…

Jesus Christ is our Saviour because He became a substitute for guilty man. He, having taken upon Himself the form of manhood by union with our nature, stood in the room, place, and stead of sinners. When the whole tempest of divine wrath was about to spend itself on man, He endured it all for His elect; when the great whip of the law must fall, He bared His own shoulders to the lash; when the cry was heard, “Awake, O sword!” it was against Christ the Shepherd, against the man who was the fellow to the eternal God. And because He thus suffered in the place and stead of man, He received power from on high to become the Saviour of man, and to bring many sons into glory, because He had been made perfect through suffering…Happy art thou, if thou hast laid thy hand upon the head of Him who was slain for sinners. Be glad, and rejoice in the Lord without ceasing, if today that blessed Redeemer who has ascended upon high has become thy Saviour, delivered thee from sin, passing by thy transgressions, and making thee to be accepted in the Beloved. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0551.cfm

Very God of Very God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

…to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ… – 2 Peter 1:1

The word “through” in our translation, might, quite as correctly, have been rendered “in”-“faith in the righteousness of our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” True faith, then, is a faith in Jesus Christ, but it is a faith in Jesus Christ as divine. That man who believes in Jesus Christ as simply a prophet, as only a great teacher, has not the faith which will save him. Charity would make us hope for many Unitarians, but honesty compels us to condemn them without exception, so far as vital godliness is concerned. It matters not how intelligent may be their conversation, nor how charitable may be their manners, nor how patriotic may be their spirit, if they reject Jesus Christ as very God of very God, we believe they shall without doubt perish everlastingly. Our Lord uttered no dubious words when He said, “He that believeth not shall be damned,” and we must not attempt to be more liberal than the Lord Himself. Little allowance can I make for one who receives Jesus the prophet, and rejects Him as God. It is an atrocious outrage upon common sense for a man to profess to be a believer in Christ at all, if he does not receive His divinity. I would undertake, at any time, to prove to a demonstration, that if Christ were not God, He was the grossest impostor who ever lived. One of two things, He was either divine or a villain… He was the grossest of all deceivers, if He was not “very God of very God.” O beloved, you and I have found no difficulties here; when we have beheld the record of His miracles, when we have listened to the testimony of His divine Father, when we have heard the word of the inspired apostles, when we have felt the majesty of His own divine influence in our own hearts, we have graciously accepted Him as “the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father;” and, as John bear witness of Him and said, “The Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God,” even so have we received Him; so that at this day, He that was born of the virgin Mary, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews, is to us “God over all, blessed for ever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0551.cfm

The Character and Origin of Faith

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”- 2 Peter 1:1

You have here a description of true saving faith. You have a description of its source. He says, “to them that have obtained like precious faith.” See, then, my brethren, faith does not grow in man’s heart by nature; it is a thing which is obtained. It is not a matter which springs up by a process of education, or by the example and excellent instruction of our parents; it is a thing which has to be obtained. Not imitation, but regeneration; not development, but conversion. All our good things come from without us, only evil can be educed from within us. Now, that which is obtained by us must be given to us; and well are we taught in Scripture that “faith is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God.” Although faith is the act of man, yet it is the work of God. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;” but that heart must, first of all, have been renewed by divine grace before it ever can be capable of the act of saving faith. Faith, we say, is man’s act, for we are commanded to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and we shall be saved. At the same time, faith is God’s gift, and wherever we find it, we may know that it did not come there from the force of nature, but from a work of divine grace. How this magnifies the grace of God, my brethren, and how low this casts human nature! Faith. Is it not one of the simplest things? Merely to depend upon the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, does it not seem one of the easiest of virtues? To be nothing, and to let Him be everything-to be still, and to let Him work for me, does not this seem to be the most elementary of all the Christian graces? Indeed, so it is; and yet, even to this first principle and rudiment, poor human nature is so fallen and so utterly undone, that it cannot attain unto! Brethren, the Lord must not only open the gates of heaven to us at last, but He must open the gates of our heart to faith at the first…Have we a hope that we have been enabled through divine grace to cast away all our own righteousness and every dependence, and are we now, whether we sink or swim, resting entirely upon the person, the righteousness, the blood, the intercession, the precious merit of our Lord Jesus Christ? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0551.cfm

Faith and Life Together

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ…According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness… – 2 Peter 1:1,3

There be some who cultivate faith and forget holiness; these may be very high in orthodoxy, but they shall be very deep in damnation, in that day when God shall condemn those who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and make the doctrine of Christ to pander to their lusts. There are others who have strained after holiness of life, but have denied the faith; these are comparable unto the Pharisees of old, of whom the Master said, they were “whitewashed sepulchres;” they were fair to look upon externally, but inwardly, because the living faith was not there, they were full of dead men’s bones and all manner of uncleanness. Ye must have faith, for this is the foundation; ye must have holiness of life, for this is the superstructure. Of what avail is the mere foundation of a building to a man in the day of tempest? Can he hide himself among sunken stones and concrete? He wants a house to cover him, as well as a foundation upon which that house might have been built; even so we need the superstructure of spiritual life if we would have comfort in the day of doubt. But seek not a holy life without faith, for that would be to erect a house which can afford no permanent shelter, because it has no foundation on a rock-a house which must come down with a tremendous crash in the day when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat upon it. Let faith and life be put together, and, like the two abutments of an arch, they shall make your piety strong. Like the horses of Pharaoh’s chariot, they pull together gloriously. Like light and heat streaming from the same sun, they are alike full of blessing. Like the two pillars of the temple, they are for glory and for beauty. They are two streams from the fountain of grace; two lamps lit with holy fire; two olive-trees watered by heavenly care; two stars carried in Jesus’ hand. The Lord grant that we may have both of these to perfection, that His name may be praised.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0551.cfm

Are You There in the Land of the Living?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life 4 Comments

But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) – Ephesians 2:4, 5

Ah! Beloved, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” God has given us a life that is more precious than the Koh-i-noor, a life that will outlast the sun and moon. When all things that are shall be like old ocean’s foam, which dissolves into the wave that bears it, and is gone for ever; we shall live, and we shall live in Christ, and with Christ, glorified for ever. When the moon has become black as sackcloth of hair, the life that is within us shall be as bright as when God first gave it to us. Thou hast the dew of thy youth, O child of God; and thou shalt have yet more of it, and be like thy Lord, when He shall take thee away from every trace of death, and the corrupt atmosphere of this poor world, and thou shalt dwell with the living God in the land of the living, for ever and for ever!

The practical outcome of all this, that some of you do not know anything at all about it. If you do not, let the fact impress you. If there be a divine life to which you are a stranger, how long will you be a stranger to it? If there be a spiritual death, and you are dead, be startled; for within a little while God will say, “Bury my dead out of my sight.” And what will happen to you when the word of God is, “Depart, depart, depart, depart,” and unto the graveyard of souls, to the fire that never shall be quenched, you and the rest of the dead are taken away? “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” and, unless we are made alive unto Him, He cannot be our God either here or hereafter. The Lord impress this solemn truth on all your hearts by His own spirit; for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2267.cfm

The Life that is Above

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”- Ephesians 2:6

That is very wonderful. We have not only left the dead, and become joined to Christ, but we are made to sit in heaven with Christ. A man is where his head is, is he not? And every believer is where his Head is; and if we are members of Christ’s body, we are in heaven. It is a very blessed experience to be able to walk on earth, and look up to heaven; but it is a higher experience to live in heaven, and look down on the earth; and this is what the believer may do. He may sit in the heavenlies; Christ is there as his Representative. The believer may take possession of what his Representative is holding on his behalf. Oh, to live in heaven, to dwell there, to let the heart be caught up from this poor life into the life that is above! This is where we should be, where we may be if we are quickened by the divine life.

We are in this position, that God is now working in us, through this divine life, to make us the most wonderful reflectors of His grace that He has yet formed. He has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, “that in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” The ages to come will have for their wonder the quickened children of God. When God made the world, it was a wonder, and the angels came from afar to see His handiwork. But when Christ makes the new creation, they will say no more that God made the heaven and the earth, but they will say in higher strains, “He made these new-born men and women. He made for them, and in them, new heavens and a new earth.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2267.cfm